SS131 general psych midterm

The human brain is estimated to consist of approximately how many nerve cells? (Neurons)

100 billion

Neurotransmitters are

A naturally occurring chemical in our nervous system that specializes in transmitting information

Internal causes are the main emphasis of the ________ perspective, whereas external causes are the main emphasis of the ______ perspective.

Biological; behavioral

Psychologists who study how brain chemistry influences behavior are most likely from the _______ perspective, whereas psychologists who study how we think and reason are most likely from the ________ perspective.

Biological; cognitive

In Watson's study, the white was the ____ and the loud noise was the _______

CS;UCS

the brain is part of the ______ system and the spinal chord is apart of the ____ nervous system

Central;central

The____differentiates the human brain from that of all other animals

Cerebral cortex

The trichromatic theory of color vision proposes that we have three types of _____

Cones specialized for perceiving wavelengths of light corresponding to blue, green and red

H.M's performance on the mirror tracing task revealed that he _____.

Could encode new procedural memories

The neuronal structure responsible for RECEIVING information?

Dendrite

The goal of a participant observation is _______, and the goal of a correlational study is _______.

Description; prediction

Low levels of the neurotransmitter ______ are associated with Parkinson's disease.

Dopamine

Which of the following procedures would increase the likelihood that neither the experimenter NOR the participants' expectations would impact the results of a research project

Double-blind procedure

Which theory of motivation suggests that our behavior is motivated by biological needs like hunger and thirst

Drive-reduction theory

The ____ marks the boundary between the outer ear and the middle ear

Eardrum

According to Steven's power law, for which of the following judgements is the PERCEIVED magnitude GREATER than the ACTUAL magnitude

Electric shock

Within neurons, communication is ______. Between neurons, communication is ______.

Electrical;chemical

If a professor is testing your recall ability, she is most likely to use ______ exams.

Essay

In a signal detection experiment, a tendency to say "yes" leads to ______, whereas a tendency to say "no" leads to _______.

Few misses; few false Alarms

The case study of HM revealed that after surgery H.M was unable to _______ suggesting that the _______ plays a role in these types of memories

Form new memories; hippocampus

Cones, located primary in the_____, are responsible for vision in _______

Fovea; bright light

_____ theory can explain how we perceive low- pitched sounds, and _____theory can explain how we perceive high-pitches sounds

Frequency; place

main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the nervous system is

GABA

Damage to ____ produces _____deafness

Hair cells; nerve

Research evidence suggest the ______ is important in the formation of explicit memories and the ____ is important in the formation of implicit memories

Hippocampus;cerebellum

hindsight bias is called

I-knew-it-all-along phenomena

Photographic memory that lasts for less than 1 second is also called______.

Iconic memory

The _______theory(ies) of motivation would best explain a person's motivation for studying in order to earn good grades

Incentive

negative reinforcement ________ a behavior by removing an ______stimulus

Increases; aversive

Autonomic is to somatic as _____ is to______

Involuntary; voluntary

Walking down a dark, deserted street, Brian suddenly hears footsteps behind him. He starts to sweat and begins to run down the street, interpreting his sweating and running as an indication of fear. This particular description of an emotional experience most directly agrees with which of the following theories of emotion?

James-Lange

Tolman's research on maze running rats demonstrate

Latent learning

The ____ is the score positioned in the middle of a distribution when all the scores are listed from lowest to highest

Median.

absolute threshold

Minimum amount of physical energy required for detection 50 of the time

Which of the following has (have) been cited as a neural basis for observational learning

Mirror neurons

Acetylcholine (ACh) is a neurotransmitter that is involved in_____

Muscle movement

When there is a _____relationship, as values of variable X( e.g elevation) increase, values of variable Y( e.g temperature) decrease

Negative

Which of the following is best explained by the facial-feedback hypothesis

Our brains use our facial expressions to determine the emotions we are experiencing

As an individual walks away from us, the visual image we sense decreases in size; however, the visual image we perceive does not. This is due to______.

Perceptual constancies

After solving a series of mathematical problems using a complicated formula, Mark uses the same formula to solve another problem he could have solved using a much simpler formula. Mark's continued reliance on the complicated formula BEST illustrates which of the following?

Perceptual set

Suppose Angela starts an argument with her boyfriend because she is seeking his attention. He angrily responds with a negative comment about Angela's behavior. In this example the negative comment is an example of _____ that, according to operant conditioning principles, will _______ the probability of Angela starting another argument

Reinforcement; increase

The Receptor cells for the visual system are the _____?

Rods and cones

Which of the following is the correct order of visual information processing?

Rods and cones—>bipolar cells—>ganglion cells—>optic nerve

The______ is the group of people who participate in a study, whereas the ______ is all of the people about whom a study is meant to generalize

Sample;population

Information traveling from the senses to the brain is to ______, as the brain's use of knowledge, beliefs, and expectations to interpret data is to ______

Sensation; perception

Which of the following statements about subliminal perception has been supported by research

Sensory input can be registered without conscious awareness

______ is a neurotransmitter involved in levels of arousal and mood that is influenced by drugs such a Zoloft

Serotonin

When behavioral psychologist reinforce successive approximations to the desired response, they are using the process of

Shaping

Which of the following is an example of an unconditioned response

Shivering Pulling your hand away Blinking an eye when a puff is blown into it All of these are examples

The "magical number 7+/- 2" was derived from studies on ______.

Short term memory capacity

The Myelin sheath______ the neural impulse because

Speeds up; the impulse leaps from one gap in the sheath to another

The phrase "use it or lose it" best reflects the ____ theory of forgetting.

Storage decay

Which of the following statements about subjective contours is (are) TRUE?

Subjective contours contain lines that appear to be present but are in fact absent

What is meant by the statement "beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but rather in the brain of the beholder" ?

The brain's subjective interpretation of an actual stimulus is what we perceive

Godsend and Baddeley (1975) determined the participants recalled more information when their study and test environments were matched. Which of the following beat explains this effect?

The encoding specificity principle

The gestalt principle of closure explains _____, whereas the gelstalt principle of proximity explains_______.

The tendency to complete incomplete figures to form meaningful objects; the tendency to group together the objects that are near each other

What happens when the impulse reaches the axon terminals?

The vesicles in the axon terminals open and neurotransmitters enter the synaptic gap.

To see an object beat in dim levels of light you should look ______

To the side, so the object is focused on the periphery of the retina where more rods are located

To increase the likelihood that students will study continuously throughout the semester, an instructor should give unannounced exams on a_________reinforcement schedule

Variable interval

______ states that for each type of sensory judgment that we make, the measured just noticeable difference (jnd) is a constant proportion of the standard stimulus value used to measure it

Weber's law

If you mix an equal amount of red, green, and blue wavelengths of light, the resulting color appears _____.

White

Which of the following is the best example of a secondary reinforcer

a gold star when you do good work

When a very small dog licks 2-year-old Abby's hand, Abby calls the animal a cat because her framework of knowledge about cats relates to small animals and her framework of knowledge about dogs relates to bigger animals. Her retrieval of the label "cat" was MOST clearly influenced by which of the following?

an existing schema

The long, singular fiber leaving the cell body is the ______.

axon

Psychology is currently defined as the science of ______.

behavior and mental processes

Depth cues requiring information from both eyes is to _____ as depth cues requiring information from one eye is to _____.

binocular cues and monocular cues

It is easier for humans to develop a fear of snakes than to develop a fear of flowers, which BEST illustrates

biological preparedness

A research technique commonly used to study the effects of brain injury on various behaviors is

case study

The ____ contains the nucleus of the neuron

cell body

After an accident, Carl has some difficulty keeping his balance and also seems to have forgotten how to tie his shoes. It is most likely that Carl has suffered damage to which of the following brain structures

cerebellum

______ is (are) often referred to as Pavlovian conditioning.

classical conditioning

The structure that allows two cerebral hemispheres to communicate is the

corpus callosum

Starting with incoming information, which of the following describes the sequence of neuronal transmission?

dendrites, cell body, axon, axon terminal

Tawana answers the phone if there are three short rings, but ignores the call if the rings are long. In terms of classical conditioning, Tawana's different responses best illustrate which of the following?

discrimination

The fact that most Americans cannot easily recall exactly what a U.S penny looks like is best explained by which of the following?

encoding failure

Laura vividly remembers her high school graduation, an example of _____ memory, but has forgotten the meaning of the term "photosynthesis," a failure of _____ memory.

episodic and semantic

Gail is taking psychology because it is a required course for her major, most directly suggesting that her motivation for taking the course is ______.

extrinsic

fMRIs are preferred over PET scans because ______.

fMRIs are less invasive and produce sharper images

The key theme of the Loftus and Palmer study of false memory described in the text is:

false memories can become "real" memories leading us to feel confident that they actually occurred

Your biology professor has decided to divide the semester into three equal sections. During each section, you meet for nine class periods and then have an exam. This most closely resembles a _____ schedule of reinforcement. We would expect the cumulative record for this schedule to have _____.

fixed interval; flat sections followed by dramatic bursts of rapid responding

Carrie is paid a commission for every 10 boxes of candy she sells, illustrating a ______ schedule of reinforcement.

fixed ratio

If students are interested in how many students received As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs on their last exam, they should request that their professor provide them information on the

frequency distribution

The cells comprising the support system in the nervous system are the ______, and the cells responsible for receiving, sending, and integrating information in the nervous system are the ______.

glial cells and neurons

_____ are chemical messengers produced by the endocrine glands and transmitted ____

hormones, bloodstream

Remembering how to type on a keyboard is an example of which of the following types of memories?

implicit memory

Experiments involve the manipulation of ________ and measurement of _______

independent variables; dependent variables

Elaborative rehearsal is more effective than maintenance rehearsal because ______.

it provides more retrieval cues when we need to recall information

The most commonly used measure of central tendency is the ________, and the most commonly used measure of variability is the ________

mean;standard deviation

When Hillary has nothing to write on, she takes a mental walk through her house selecting various places for items she needs to remember to buy at the grocery store. Then when she gets to the grocery store, she takes this mental walk again while shopping. Which mnemonic device is Hillary using?

method of loci

Whenever Francesca is angry with her brother Gerald, she more easily recalls many of the times she has been treated unfairly by others in the past. Which of the following best explains this?

mood-congruent effect

Dr. Matthews is observing children on the playground and recording instances of aggression. This BEST illustrates which research method?

naturalistic observation

Dian Fossey's study of gorillas is an example of ______.

naturalistic observation that turned into participant observation

We are able to interpret varying intensities of stimuli (e.g., a pat versus a slap) because _____.

neurons send messages more frequently when we receive more intense stimuli

The limbic system plays an important role in

our survival, emotion, and memory

As part of an experiment to test the effectiveness of a drug for depression, one group of participants receives a pill that does not contain any active ingredients. The inclusion of these participants most directly indicates that the experiment involves which of the following?

placebo group

When there is a _____relationship, as values of variable X( e.g income) increase, values of variable Y( e.g education level) ALSO INCREASE

positive

maintenance rehearsal is most useful for ____.

retaining information in short-term memory

Although Henry's watchband was bothering him when he first put it on, a short while later he did not even notice he was wearing it. This illustrates ____________.

sensory adaptation

According to the three-stage model of memory, in what sequence does incoming information flow through memory?

sensory memory, short-term memory, long-term memory

Dr. Brandon studies how elementary school children's grades and participation in after school activities differ as a function of whether they attend schools located in urban or rural environments. Dr. Brandon's research interests most likely reflect a ______ perspective.

sociocultural

You recently heard a friend say that the presidential candidate had received several speeding tickets when he was younger. You later recall this information as coming from a newspaper article. In this example, you are MOST likely experiencing _____.

source misattribution

The partial recovery of a previously extinguished CR (conditioned response) is to ______, as the disappearance of a CR (conditioned response) is to ______.

spontaneous recovery; extinction

George Miller is credited with determining:

the amount of information that can be held in short-term memory

We experience the moon illusion because

the brain misapplies information about distance when the moon is surrounded by objects on the horizon

Retrieval is

the process of getting information out of long term memory to the conscious level in the short term memory

After listening to a weather forecast predicting a storm, John perceives the sound made by a slammed car door as thunder, which beat illustrates______.

top-down processing

The process of converting physical energy into neural signals is called _______

transduction

Slot machines provide reinforcement on a _____ schedule of reinforcement whereas pop quizzes operate on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.

variable ratio and variable interval

As Janet is waiting in line at the theater, a man runs by and grabs her purse. Someone is more likely to respond to Janet's cries for help if she is waiting in line with ____, illustrating the ____.

very few other people; bystander effect

Albert banduras investigation of observational learning demonstrated that children

who were not exposed to an adult acting aggressively against the Bobo doll were much less likely to engage in aggressive behavior toward the Bobo doll